Spirituality as Relationships

Nowadays you can frequently hear from people “I am not into religion, but I am a spiritual person.” Wording may differ, but the meaning is the same. People have given up on religion, but not on spirituality.
How can it be? Are you spiritual or religious? In fact you your answer is first, then why bother with any religion? I’ve seen banners “God hates religion” in places that people would consider a church, but they themselves prefer calling it a “meeting place.” What do we have here, a church, a religion, or spirituality?
Let me clear possible misunderstandings by defining terms: RELIGION is a set of boundaries, a set of rules and regulations, to protect, guess what! - a SPIRITUALITY. There is an Islam, a religion, defining Muslim spirituality, then Buddhist religion and spirituality, and the list goes on. There are different spiritualities!!! We have our human spirit that expresses self. Just having an attitude does not make one right. The question is “to what is the attitude tuned in?”
Christian spirituality is uniquely defined by Christian religion, as it invites the human spirit for a connection with Divine Spirit. Romans 8:16 is a beautiful illustration of such dialogue.
So, “How spiritual are you?” is really a question about “what spirit are you tuning into?”
Here’s the essence of Biblical Spirituality: the Bible, both Old and New Testament, define spirituality credo as Love!
The shema of Israel (Deuteronomy 6:4-5) and Jesus’ Rule (Mark 12:29-31) “The Lord our God is the one and only Lord! And thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with ALL thy heart, and with ALL thy soul, and with ALL thy mind, and with ALL thy strength…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
Spirituality is a passionate love, a relationship with God and people! How spiritual are you is determined by how “hot” is your loving relationship with God and godly people. I must pause here for a moment, because we often hear one-sided focus on loving people. Notice, it comes only, and is possible only, after truly loving God, and not only loving God partially, either with some of our mind, or just our heart, but with ALL heart + ALL mind + ALL will, if anything is missing, or partial we do not love God enough.
Partial does not mean we do not think about God enough, or we do not do ethical things of holiness, or we do not feel the joy always, it simply means we do not LOVE God enough. And without that, the second aspect of loving people becomes impossible.
Adventism is not a religion, it is first spirituality, of loving God and loving people. The “religious” part of it is protecting our relationships to always be passionate, real, and ever growing.